The Postgres query language is
a variant of the SQL3 draft
next-generation standard. It has many extensions such as an
extensible type system, inheritance, functions and production
rules. These are features carried over from the original
Postgres query language,
PostQuel. This section provides an
overview of how to use PostgresSQL to perform simple operations. This
manual is only intended to give you an idea of our flavor of
SQL and is in no way a complete
tutorial on SQL. Numerous books have
been written on SQL, including
[MELT93] and [DATE97]. You should be aware that some language
features are not part of the ANSI
standard.

In the examples that follow, we assume that you have created the
mydb database as described in the previous subsection and have
started psql. Examples in this
manual can also be found in /usr/local/pgsql/src/tutorial/. Refer to the
README file in that directory for how to
use them. To start the tutorial, do the following:

% cd /usr/local/pgsql/src/tutorial
% psql -s mydb
Welcome to the POSTGRESQL interactive sql monitor:
Please read the file COPYRIGHT for copyright terms of POSTGRESQL
type \? for help on slash commands
type \q to quit
type \g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
You are currently connected to the database: postgres
mydb=> \i basics.sql

The \i command read in queries from the
specified files. The -s option puts you in
single step mode which pauses before sending a query to the
backend. Queries in this section are in the file basics.sql.

psql has a variety of
\d commands for showing system
information. Consult these commands for more details; for a
listing, type \? at the psql prompt.

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